Brigitte Bardot, French icon and 1960s sultry siren, no more

Brigitte Bardot, the French 1960s sex symbol who became one of the greatest screen sirens of the 20th century and later a militant animal rights activist, has died. She was 91.

Bruno Jacquelin, of the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the protection of animals, told The Associated Press that she died on Sunday at her home in southern France, and would not provide a cause of death. He said no arrangements have yet been made for funeral or memorial services. She had been hospitalized last month.

Posters showing actor Brigitte Bardot hang at a security barrier near her home in Saint-Tropez, southern France, on Sunday. AP

Bardot became an international celebrity as a sexualised teen bride in the 1956 movie "And God Created Woman.” Directed by her then-husband, Roger Vadim, it triggered a scandal with scenes of the long-legged beauty dancing on tables naked.

At the height of a cinema career that spanned some 28 films and three marriages, Bardot came to symbolize a nation bursting out of bourgeois respectability. Her tousled, blond hair, voluptuous figure and pouty irreverence made her one of France’s best-known stars.

Model for national emblem

Such was her widespread appeal that in 1969 her features were chosen to be the model for "Marianne,” the national emblem of France and the official Gallic seal. Bardot’s face appeared on statues, postage stamps and even on coins.

Martial, a 7-month-old seal pup, poses with Brigitte Bardot on a beach near Cayeux, northern France. File / AP

Bardot’s second career as an animal rights activist was equally sensational. She travelled to the Arctic to blow the whistle on the slaughter of baby seals; she condemned the use of animals in laboratory experiments; and she opposed sending monkeys into space.

Racist tones

"Man is an insatiable predator,” Bardot told The Associated Press on her 73rd birthday, in 2007. "I don’t care about my past glory. That means nothing in the face of an animal that suffers, since it has no power, no words to defend itself.”

Brigitte Bardot and her husband Gunter Sachs pose just before boarding a chartered airplane on their honeymoon in Las Vegas on July 14, 1966. AP

Her activism earned her compatriots’ respect and, in 1985, she was awarded the Legion of Honour, the nation’s highest honour.

Later, however, she fell from public grace as her animal protection diatribes took on a decidedly extremist tone and her far-right political views sounded racist as she frequently decried the influx of immigrants into France, especially Muslims.

Actors protesting sexual harassment 'hypocritical'

In 2018, at the height of the #MeToo movement, Bardot said in an interview that most actors protesting sexual harassment in the film industry were "hypocritical” and "ridiculous” because many played "the teases” with producers to land parts.

She said she had never had been a victim of sexual harassment and found it "charming to be told that I was beautiful or that I had a nice little a**e.”

Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot was born on Sept. 28, 1934, to a wealthy industrialist. A shy, secretive child, she studied classical ballet and was discovered by a family friend who put her on the cover of Elle magazine at age 14.

Bardot once described her childhood as "difficult” and said her father was a strict disciplinarian who would sometimes punish her with a horse whip.

Brigitte Bardot (C) takes part in a demonstration by animal rights protesters outside the European council building in Brussels. File

But it was French movie producer Vadim, whom she married in 1952, who saw her potential and wrote "And God Created Woman” to showcase her provocative sensuality, an explosive cocktail of childlike innocence and raw sexuality.

The film, which portrayed Bardot as a bored newlywed who beds her brother-in-law, had a decisive influence on New Wave directors Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut, and came to embody the hedonism and sexual freedom of the 1960s.

The film was a box-office hit, and it made Bardot a superstar.

Among her films were "A Parisian” (1957); "In Case of Misfortune,” in which she starred in 1958 with screen legend Jean Gabin; "The Truth” (1960); "Private Life” (1962); "A Ravishing Idiot” (1964); "Shalako” (1968); "Women” (1969); "The Bear And The Doll” (1970); "Rum Boulevard” (1971); and "Don Juan” (1973).

With the exception of 1963’s critically acclaimed "Contempt,” directed by Godard, Bardot’s films were rarely complicated by plots. Often they were vehicles to display Bardot’s curves and legs in scanty dresses or frolicking nude in the sun.

"It was never a great passion of mine,” she said of filmmaking. "And it can be deadly sometimes. Marilyn (Monroe) perished because of it.”

Associated Press